2025-07-25: A WILD SISTER HAS APPEARED
- Log: A WILD SISTER HAS APPEARED
- Cast: So-young Park, Myunghon Yeo
- Where: The Cardboard Dragon
- OOC Date: July 24, 2025
- IC Date: June 15, 2012
- Summary: really i'm not kidding
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So far, So-young Park is not all that impressed by Sumaru City. It's nice enough for a day trip, she supposes, but when she's used to the hustle and bustle of inner city Tokyo, everything else feels somewhat lacking in comparison. Aoba Park's pleasant, she'll admit that much, and she's already spent some time circling the open-air stage with an appraising eye. A half-remembered contact at Sumaru TV gave her a chance to show her face there, and maybe if she's lucky she's been loud enough for Coolest to take notice.
But it's not like she's here on business, per se. A crumpled note with an address scrawled on it in her hand, the musician stares at the alleyway to the Cardboard Dragon with suspicious eyes. She's not wearing sunglasses, but if she were she'd be pushing them up on her face as she squints.
Here, she feels truly out of place, cutting a striking figure in the dingy side street - long white hair, vertical stripes of black running through it. She's somewhere between business and fashion, expensive black slacks and white blouse, because honestly her mother didn't give her the slightest indication whether she was heading to a bank or a company or a fortuneteller or an underground casino. What is the dress etiquette for a board game store? Hell if she knows. Maybe she should have brought one of her ita-bags.
"Fine, whatever," she grumbles to herself, tromping her way up the fire escape on heels. That part was definitely a terrible idea. Her patience is already waning when she reaches the top, and the poor door faces the full wrath of her barreling through it as if she owns the place, hands immediately going to her hips as she stands in the threshold.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Hirasaka... 'was'. That's the principle word for it. Was. It's a city ward that clearly wears its 80's influences, and not in the rock 'n' roll and leather way -- it's the way that it once was a bustling centre of commerce in the glitz of the economic bubble... and has since fallen to the wayside. Renovation and rejuvenation projects aren't happening here. Gentrification is happening elsewhere.
The Cardboard Dragon doesn't even have a proper front door. You have to go in through the back, up a set of metal stairs, and onto a fire escape door that has the store sign on an A4 sheet of paper. The 'open' sign, also a sheet of A4, fell onto the walkway at some point, and is soggy from when it was last raining.
And inside...
Whew. Again, this was some kind of office, once upon a time. The cracked tiles, the dilapidated ceiling, the single-glazed windows all point towards something that's existed for decades and hasn't been loved since. One portion of the floorspace is dedicated to... books. It's old books, too, written in Japanese, English, French... Dostoevsky, Verlaine, the brothers Goumont... is there anything written within the last ten years here? No.
The other half is a card store and... there's no one here, because it's school hours, and the delinquents have better places to hang out here. Instead, there is a...
There is a person, on the couch, having transcended the human art of seating, doing impossible crimes to the couch seat with their god-ankles. They've got a large corkboard next to them, with red string and pins of a map of Sumaru all over, with notes and photographs and such -- and a laptop in front of them. But more curious than all that is the...
The... tall stack of... animal crackers? That they've assembled in front of them. It's over seventy centimetres in height, which is incredibly impressive. Somehow, it hasn't tipped over just yet.
The person has a raven's nest of white hair, under which half their face is covered in bandages, including their right eye. Their upper torso is also similarly wreathed in bandages, underneath their cheap, but clean-looking suit, a little rumpled and not worn sharply -- white dress shirt, black dress pants, a long suit jacket slung over their shoulders.
They haven't noticed the door open.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
At the very least, So-young isn't the sort of person to take Hirasaka's 'was' as a be-all and end-all. She knows plenty of things that 'were', but that can have new life breathed into them if you just give them a chance. She regularly includes some of them in her concerts, and she doesn't just mean the compositions. She'd considered it a personal victory when a seventy-year-old oboe player roared with laughter as a particularly bombastic performance echoed away.
She stops dead at the first sight of another person, her eyes slowly narrowing once more as she takes in the store as a whole and the unidentifiable spindly lump on the couch. It's not that she's scared, thank you, it's that this is perhaps the most sketchy place she's been in in months. Maybe years. But she's damned if that's going to stop her at this point.
Striding forwards, she makes an artful (and extremely practiced) motion of flicking her hair out with a hand as she turns on her heel, her arms folded as she frowns down at the figure on the couch in challenge, grey eyes meeting grey. Despite the movement of the air, the tower of animal crackers barely wobbles, even as she picks one up
and puts it
in her mouth.
Yeah, that'll show them, she thinks in triumph.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
The other person's eyes goldfish at this cruel and unwarranted act of Koala-stealing. They're incredibly silent for a moment, eyeing up this new person with their two-tone hair and oddly familiar grey eyes and their getup. They don't look like they're from around. There's a stink that Hirasaka inflicts on you that doesn't wear off easy. No, their smell is something from up north, a dying product of the last days of Takeshita Street before it's becoming a glorified Forever 21...
Why does this person feel familiar?
"My apologies. Can I assist you with anything?" Myunghon rises to their feet, a little bit taller than So-young is when they rise to full height. 175 centimetres, and a bag of bones at that, with long, lanky limbs. "Please feel free to take a look around."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young has to angle her face up a little to meet Myunghon's, but she's never been one to let something like that stop her either. Re-folding her arms, she goes back to the resolute frown that's held her in good stead over the years when she feels it's time to dig her heels into the floor. "That's what I want to know," she points out when Myunghon asks if she can be of assistance. "Someone directed me here, and I've yet to figure out exactly why. Or, for that matter, why here."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
Pausing, So-young relents a little, letting out a sigh as she forces her shoulders to drop. "... I'm on edge," she says as a partial explanation, though it's notable that she doesn't actually apologize. Instead she blithely adds, with the confident self-assurance of an actress playing a lie, "It's a nice-looking place that you have here."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon pauses to consider this, and there's a clear manner in which their brain spiderwebs out and starts lapping at these little threads. Someone sent this woman here? Who could it be? Are they being duped by someone who's out against them? Is it that assassin -- no, that's not his style. One of the NWO? One of Miho or Remi or Yua's handlers? No, again, this isn't really their style either. One of those with a past against the Baengnyong, then? Getting warmer, though Myunghon is only feeling chills at present.
"Well..." Myunghon clears their throat, and then gestures towards the couch and slides the corkboard a little further away. "Please, have a seat. Perhaps you could start with who sent you here? I assume, then, that you aren't here for the books or the cards. I'm Myunghon Yeo, by the way, owner of the Cardboard Dragon. It's nice to meet you...?"
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
This woman's forceful nature clearly isn't always directed outwards - in the face of Myunghon's polite approach you can just see the way in which So-young draws in a breath, closes her eyes for the briefest of pauses, and tells herself to stop being such an idiot. "Thank you," she tilts her head in recognition, and this time she lights up with an actress' smile instead, bright and suddenly cheery as she sits down.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
There's still a certain curiosity and wariness in her eyes, but that thoughtful look quickly takes a back seat when she has something to focus on in the here and now. "So-young Park," she replies. She has business cards in her purse, in fact, but it hardly feels right. "If anything, you may have heard of Suzie Park. Mother _dearest_ is the one that gave me this address, and absolutely nothing else to go on, and of course would not take no for an answer." There is no venom in that title, just the pleasant weariness of exasperated family.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
You could hear the crows crawing outside, for a moment.
Even before So-young continues on, the tipping of their surname -- Park -- already speaks volumes. And in turn, the lack of reaction to their own, Yeo. There's something of an emotional journey as they go from what looks like abject skepticism to 'of course mother would arrange for something like this' to 'no, this is another ploy by one of the evils that plague this world and are conspiring to get me' to 'I must commune with the Koalas, what would the Koalas say?'.
One of the Koalas stares back at them, on the tower that they're looming at.
KOALA MARCH -- Solidarity. No koala is an island. We are all half-siblings, no matter what factory we were produced out of, no matter what concentration of sugar and cocoa solids mix inside our wafer-shells.
"Ah..."
Myunghon pauses hesitantly, and then steps closer towards the windows and immediately pulls their phone out. They call... call... call... calling, calling... nope. Of course.
"It seems that our mother is up to her old tricks again," is how Myunghon puts it, succinctly. "And of course, I cannot reach her on any of her numbers. And from your reaction, it seems that you are entirely far too used to this as well."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
It takes So-young several seconds of blankly staring before any part of that answer properly filters through to her brain, even after you take into account the fact that she has technically shared in communion with the Koalas. Bereft of a finer spiritual sense, the only message she's able to get back from the beyond is:
KOALA MARCH -- You _definitely_ didn't eat a big enough lunch. This calls for _more communion_. Embrace it. It's tasty.
"I'm sorry?" she asks, her eyebrows high in a lack of understanding. Her hands are moving on their own, as if shadowing Myunghon's actions, and she's already pulled out her phone to jab a number into it before she even realizes she's doing it. She's still processing as she lifts it to her ear. "... she has even turned her answerphone off," she flatly reports.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon watches So-young for a moment longer, and now that they have the context of what's happening, it's easier to see why they look so familiar. They *are* siblings. Their lives have taken them to the farthest reaches abroad, but it's not hard to see some of the similarities in even just their physical appearance. Even if she's got a lot more yen draped on her than they do.
"Let's... put this another way," Myunghon decides, knowing it will be easier if they take the lead. "My father is Seojoon Yeo, or more commonly known, Seiichirou Yukichi, a common and powerful name in the corporate world."
There's disdain in the way they put it. "I assume... unless eomeoni dearest is *really* playing with us... that the answer to that question will be different for you."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young is busy trying a second number to no avail. "You coward! You can't just turn off _all your phones_ at once! Mother, I will wring your neck--" she grouses aloud at her phone's receiver, as if it will do any good to tell the monotone beep-beep-beep tone off.
With a sigh, she makes a show of bodily sagging in her seat, two fingers going to her forehead to rub at the knot that she can feel growing there. Even then she somehow manages to make the motion look larger than it ought to, as if she's trying to take up the whole room with every action she takes. In a stark contrast to that, her look up towards Myunghon is owlish and silent, and only becomes moreso when the other person - her sibling, apparently??? - mentions the name of their father.
It's already awkward enough that she doesn't recognize the name. It rapidly gets even worse when Myung-hon prompts her for the name of hers. There's a long, long silence, and then So-young slides her eyes anywhere but Myung-hon's face. "... ... ... ... perhaps?" she tries, rapidly peddling mentally to try to keep above deeper waters.
She doesn't even know. And while she's fine with that, admitting it aloud is a whole different situation.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
This is getting even more confusing. And confusing is... exciting, normally, except that this is an open and dangeous thread to leave alone. Why did Suzie send her here? Why now, of all places? Was this part of their new responsibilities as the leader of the Baengnyong? They're not contactable -- not a worry, entirely normal for the most part, but they don't have the look of someone who's...
Well.
They don't look like someone who's knee-deep in crime and skullduggery. Someone who's lived a relatively nice, peaceful life. Someone who doesn't have three best friends, one of which mauled half their body that they have a difficult complex towards.
Someone who shouldn't be here.
"Okay... let's do this another way," Myunghon patiently says when So-young admits she doesn't know. "What was your life like? I assume you lived far, far away from our household in Sumaru, because I certainly haven't heard about you up until now."
A pause.
"<Do you speak Korean?>"
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young lifts herself back up, refolding her arms like it's her battle stance. Again, there's an obvious moment where she draws a firm line within herself, forcibly separating her frustration at her mother with-- with whatever the hell all this is, frankly. She's still not sure, but even if she's exasperated, at least she can find it within herself to deal with it pleasantly.
(Until the next surprise comes along, probably. But she's gotten very good at staying in the moment.)
She blinks once in muted surprise at the question, and then effortlessly switches to Korean. "<Of course. I was born and raised there - at least, as far as I know,>" she huffs. Okay, maybe she's not entirely over it yet. That particular grump might last until she tries to make good on her threat to her mother, and only end when her mother promptly clowns on her in return. "<I've only been in Japan for a little over two years. I'm working in Tokyo as a musician. With the Philarmonic. Doing concerts and performances.>"
The last few lines are delivered one by one, looking for any recognition in Myunghon's face, like it's a series of hints from someone who definitely thinks they should be more of a well-known name than they are.
"I was searching online for mention of myself and came across someone complaining on me in a forum thread somewhere. Just the usual about how I'm so flashy and amazing I'll end up giving a fossil a heart attack sometime," another flick of her hair. "I joked about it towards my uncle, and before I knew it my mother was throwing me in your direction. Look," she adds, passing out a grainy printout of a webpage with an expectant look.
It's clearly the Phan-Site. It's clearly her name on the title of the post. It is _clearly_ bruising her pride a little that the whole thread is five posts and three of them are 'who?'.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon, in truth, still doesn't fully buy it. It's still so much easier to think this is an agent of some sort, sent to stymie and confuse them. A ploy... but whose ploy is it? In whose style would it be to worm their way into their family life? They have many enemies, but they don't really know that much about their personal life. Not to this degree. It's so outlandish. And their story is so...
A fake would have a prepared lie for who their father is.
So-young does speak Korean. It... means nothing, but it's a little harder to prepare a fake with such credentials, they think. Okay, so born and raised there... South Korea, Myunghon assumes. They arrived here... two years ago? And they're a musician, of all things.
"Huh," Myunghon sounds a little off-guard at that. "Wait, hold on. You mentioned an uncle. Who is this uncle?"
It might piss So-young off that they clearly don't care about the internet slap fight at all, and by extension, their reputation.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young is also distinctly lacking in guile, her heart too clearly on her sleeve. It can at least be said that she has moments where she's obviously doing her best to anticipate Myunghon's unseen mental process, though there's a good chance that's down to her lived experience rather than a quick and agile mind.
So the quiet noise of surprise prompts an immediate smirk, but only because it's something So-young's heard plenty of times before, the unspoken words easily falling into place in the silence afterwards. "What, did you think I'd follow in Mother's footsteps?" she preens as her eyes flash with, of all things, a delighted glint. This is the light of a rebellious child taking pride in doing something they see as distinctly naughty and loving it. "And deny the rest of the arts my presence?"
Her laugh afterwards is more free, lighter. "That sort of thing wasn't for me in the end. Besides, I can't be bothered to memorize scripts. Give me a score any day."
But in comparison to her lightning-quick response it takes a moment longer for her to realize the thrust of the other person's question - to make the connection that if their mother is a shared contact, maybe other people are as well. "Ah, I see," So-young muses as she leans back, and then pauses as a thought strikes her. The smirk returns. "I'm giving up a lot of myself here. Why don't you give _me_ a name this time?"
So-young you just said you weren't an actress
So-young this isn't a spy movie
So-young she already gave you one name for free
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
There's a dumbfounded look from Myunghon that clearly doesn't understand where So-young's sudden preening and pride is coming from. They haven't thought much about music. Music is... rigid. They can understand the appeal, perhaps, but musicians are so focused on labels... and not record labels either. This one is jungle intelligent drum and bass. This one is breakcore retro-hip new-age. Then again, perhaps rebellious musicians like this one's just a natural outcome of that very thing that they hate about it...
"Well... as you can see, I'm also not an actor," Myunghon diplomatically shares in turn, their face a little bit more flat. But then they turn it on them? Give *them* a name?
"... fine. I think I already see the lines," Myunghon answers, then hits her with: "Byunghee Nam. 58 years old. Prefers the name 'Cheolje'. He's an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair and a strong, but scarred appearance, who's been seen with Suzie Park for at least thirty years. He's been living in South Korea for the last decade, but... he came back two years ago."
To also act as Myunghons' retainer, now that they have inherited the Baengnyong, but they leave that part out.
"Which coincidentally lines up with you arriving in Japan two years ago."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
The musician leans forwards a little in her seat. Any damaged pride or upset over her name not being recognized is being washed away by the way she's starting to get into this as if were a mystery thriller and not, you know, a key unravelling of their shared family history.
"Right! That's Uncle," So-young agrees with a firm nod before lapsing into a thoughtful frown, a finger artfully at her cheek. "To be honest, it's a surprise to hear that he was living there. He was always coming and going all the time, never sticking around for all that long. To be honest, I figured he was spending a lot of time over here. I suppose he was just that busy."
This time she does reach into the fashionable bag tucked under one arm, which has definitely been there from the start of the scene, and fishes around for a moment before offering over a small rectangle of cardboard. This one, in particular, is marked with the logo of KBS World - and has So-young's name listed as 'working on behalf of'. It's a little old, the edges fraying. "He came over with me when I started working here. We've kept in touch since, but he's busy doing Uncle things and I'm busy doing me things," she adds with a shrug.
"Anyway, he's probably the one who told Mother about that forum post. I was out for lunch with him and he got that look in his eye like he was about to beat someone up. You know, the shoulders go back a little bit and he sits a bit more squarely in his seat like someone's stuck a plank down his shirt."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon does somewhat listlessly stare at this person as they natter on about Uncle. Has the thought that Uncle is not just simply Father crossed their mind? No, surely it has. But there's a non-zero chance that they aren't father either, and that it really was just Seiichirou... no, wait, that wouldn't make sense. A situation like this only makes sense if the child in question was someone Suzie had a reason to keep secret. And they don't look... younger... than them...
The way it's so neatly split is... understandable. Cheolje wouldn't divulge what he really as doing to her. 'Uncle things', and 'me things'. So why cross the streams now? This woman sounds like she'd be far happier just striking up some performance in a concert hall in Aoba or somewhere nicer than this rathole.
"Um..."
It's really, really hard for them to imagine Cheolje getting worked up about a forum post, though. Maybe? The idea that there's this secret daughter that he and mom care more about does incense them a little, though. They're the child that was borne out of the popular gossip relationship. The child borne to the shitty corporate fascist. The evil twin, who deserved to get mauled in half by Miho's demons.
There's a look of feigned interest at the cardboard, but then they say, "Okay, so we've... sorted out some basic facts. Eomeoni clearly wanted us to meet. But we don't really have a lot in common. Can I call you a taxi, perhaps? Or I can get in touch with Ch-- 'Uncle', and have him pick you up."
Oh, fobbing her off already?
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young's eyebrows raise after just long enough to process that question. "Why?" is the immediate question she asks, in complete innocence, followed by an expansive shrug and an easy grin. "I mean, this is pretty interesting from my point of view. I've never really gotten to chat about my sordid past before, and now I know why Mother's got a big gap in her career. Actually, more than that, now I'm learning my mother wasn't _all_ career. You'll have to forgive me a bit of eager digging."
She hesitates and then leans back, spreading her arms on the back of the couch with a wistful smile. "... it's strange to think she was never around because she had another kid in Japan. Uh, not that I'm blaming you or anything, and she had her work too," she's quick to add, her eyes wide. "But-- I mean, for all that she's a know-it-all she can really be clumsy sometimes. I bet she thought she'd get a laugh out of seeing our faces afterwards."
"What's she like around you?" So-young abruptly changes tack. "I mean, I'm sitting here grousing away, but how much of this sounds familiar? If she's all prim and proper to you I must sound like a madwoman right now," she grins. "Well, even more than I already do for barging in and going 'hello I'm your secret sister--'" A frown. "--half-sister? It's not exactly a secret, either. Maybe Mother just thought I was going to stay in Korea forever."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon does, at the least, have to point out: "I may not look like I'm doing much, but this is technically work hours for me."
They do relent on that front, however, and quietly recedes into a distant frown as So-young starts speaking about their shared mother. This person is honestly more interested about family than they have been in the last few years. They can't blame them for it. It's clearly a more pleasant topic to talk about than it ever was for them.
"... distant, mostly?" Myunghon recalls. "She goes for long stretches of time without being home. She does have that sharp wit that you're used to, when she is around." There is a singular raised eyebrow, however, as they say, "No, you don't sound mad. It sounds very familiar. But maybe not familiar enough."
A pause, and then they add: "I wouldn't recommend looking Seiichirou up, though. He's not a very pleasant man, and we aren't on speaking terms."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
"Familiar... maybe that's the word. She's always doing her own thing, and if you're not a part of it, then that's that." There's an echo in the musician's voice as she leans back again, her eyes landing near the top of the pile of koala crackers. "She never means anything by it, not exactly. But when your family is that headstrong you kind of have to end up headstrong too, I suppose."
She finally chooses to take a moment to properly take stock of Myunghon. There's something in the shopowner's tightness and distance that pulls her back to the present and makes her actually listen for once, her gaze resting on the guarded expression. Even So-young is mildly surprised at how solemn she sounds. "I wasn't planning to. You're the only one that Mother mentioned."
It's not really clear if there's an unspoken comment there or not, because next moment--
"--oh, that's true!" So-young suddenly exclaims, as if she's just remembered there are people who have to work during daytime hours rather than fitting in practice whenever they can and then going to an afternoon or evening showing. This rich girl... "Should I clear out? Are you appointment-based? --no, wait, you didn't even answer why I came here in the first place yet--"
aieeeee